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| August 2000 |
Managing pre-press workflow by using that new-fangled PDF"Don't know where she's goin', don't know where she's been, as long as she's been doin' it right."
-- Ron McKernan (a.k.a. Pig Pen) SAN FRANCISCO -- Does anyone out there not know what a PDF file is? The Portable Document Format, invented by Adobe Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif., has been around nearly as long as Adobe's PostScript -- well, not quite, but it's been almost a decade. Measured in Internet time, that makes it an old-timer. Like most of Adobe's products, PDF in the 21st century has become a defacto industry standard. But PDF isn't just for documents anymore. Documents need to be produced and production needs workflow -- PDF workflow for PDF documents. So if every document is a PDF, then PDF workflow is a must. But can every electronic document be a PDF? It certainly is in the realm of possibility, and Adobe would like that very much. We have written many times about PDF and PDF workflow in the past (see The Cole Papers, April 1999, July 1998, October 1997, November 1996, October 1995, etc.), so without repeating the entire history, a brief explanation of why PDF is good for publishers is in order. At the dawn of desktop publishing, electronic documents had text and pictures. There was no color, few fonts and no high resolution. PostScript enabled those documents to be output on a laser printer. The way you exchanged a document was to print it out and hand it to someone. Then came many fonts, photo-quality resolution and finally color, not to mention a plethora of computer operating systems and applications. Oh, and the notion that maybe you'd be doing the desktop publishing in one place and the page imaging somewhere else. Not everyone could own a page layout program like Quark XPress, PageMaker or even ReadySetGo. And those electronic documents were saved in different formats. So how could you send someone a file digitally? PDFs solve all that, and Adobe Acrobat is the leading tool for turning electronic documents created with different programs on different platforms into a platform-agnostic document that can be printed from any computer on any printer and look exactly the same. That's the theory, anyway. In practice, because of the many additional variables associated with the different versions of PostScript (Levels 1, 2 and 3), the further complexities of color and font problems that would make the author of a ransom note blush, the lot of PDF files has not always been a happy one in a cross-platform, any-output-device world. But the current outlook, based on what was shown at NEXPO 2000 held here June 17-21, is most promising. Properly made and checked, PDF files can be a way to bring together editorial text, pictures and advertising in nearly automatic fashion, making a form of distributed publishing available to anyone who has a connection to the Internet. An examination of just what is needed to implement a simple PDF workflow and some of the main players would be in order at this point. Let's start with the necessities:
Making the PDF files
Quick aside: It's hard for a confirmed Macintosh user to admit, but the Windows version of Acrobat 4.0 can do some things that the Mac version can't -- like convert a Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint file into PDF within the application, or turn an Html-based web page into a PDF document. And to think that at the dawn of PostScript, it could only be used with a Macintosh. In any case, Acrobat Distiller or Exchange can run on any Pentium II or better system or any Mac PowerPC system. Every computer on every site should already have a copy of the freely distributed Acrobat Reader, which allows viewing and printing of any PDF document, but nothing else. PDF files can also be made directly from Adobe's InDesign page layout software and by use of various XTensions in Quark XPress. There are also a couple of shareware products designed to create PDF files without the need for Distiller. Once you have a lot of PDF files, those files need to be combined in various ways to make output. And that's where third parties come in. PDF files can now be used just like any other document and dropped into a pagination program used as a proof for final approval of a layout or even added to a publication just before it goes to press to be printed. Before heading onto the press with PDF files, it's important that they are flawless, and the constant lessening of human intervention along the production line serves to increase the chances of an error that might render the file unprintable slipping in. This is where a rigorous checking of the PDF file comes into play. These checkers are much like spell checkers, and to some extent, grammar checkers for word-processed files. Checkers can catch a lot, but not everything. However, written words can have nuances far more subtle than a mere PDF file, so automated checking works extremely well with PDF files.
Checking the PDF files
The software comes with profile templates, or custom templates for profiling can be built by modifying the existing templates. Checking a PDF document is as simple as opening it, selecting a profile and clicking "Create Report." From the report, fixes can be made manually or through an action list of instructions, written with the built-in macro-editor that approximates the simplicity of writing an AppleScript. PitStop (the current version is 4.0) needs Windows 95 or better on the PC side, Mac OS 8 or better and Acrobat 4.0 to function. Based on a different model, and the more automated of the two, is FlightCheck. The software has been around for many years, and at first checked Quark XPress and other page layout files, then branched out to every kind of PostScript document. Just drag-and-drop the document to be checked onto FlightCheck and any problems will be spotted and corrections suggested and the originating application opened with the cursor set on the problem. All well and good for small operations, but for larger venues, try Enfocus Server and MarkzScout. Enfocus Server runs on Windows- or Macintosh-based systems and sets up a series of folders that the server application looks into and performs actions upon. Documents that have passed muster or been corrected by Enfocus Server end up in a good or passed folder, the ones that didn't, go to the failed or bad folder. Markzware has branched out somewhat with MarkzScout, which does the same thing with folders, but with a more visual approach using "hot folders," "checkpoints" and "action points" with visual linking not unlike the old Helix Express database program. This makes it extremely easy to set up almost any kind of workflow for not only PDFs, but also all the other types of documents MarkzScout can check. The newest version of MarkzScout, 2.0, also includes PDF Maker, which can automatically create PDFs from files in other formats. Combining the automated creation of PDFs with extensive checking features makes MarkzScout a heavyweight contender in the PDF workflow race. And if that weren't enough, the newest entry in the Markzware family is MarkzNet, a web-based preflighting solution that collects, compresses and obtains job-ticket information and transmits documents to a printer or service bureau. All the press needs is a web or FTP server and small application on the customer's computer. The job won't be sent if it isn't up to the output device's standard for approval. This could eliminate a lot of improper, unprintable PDF files.
Beyond making and checking
Moving up to the biggest requirements, for really big PDF workflows, the suites of software provided by OneVision Inc. of Iselin, N.J., or Helios Software GmbH of Garbsen, Germany, are the heaviest hitters. If you want to manage a PDF workflow in a big way, these people have the right moves to get many thousands of PDFs rounded up and branded, just so you use their branding irons. OneVision concentrates on a software duo of Asura and Solvero and specialized plug-ins that run on Windows. Asura (Version 3.4) is a high-end solution for automatic correction and optimization of PDF, as well as PostScript and EPS files. Solvero (Version 4.4), provides a set of tools for editing PDF, PostScript and EPS files, and can provide output in any or all three formats, depending upon production needs. Additional functions can be performed by several plug-ins to Exchange. To list a few, they find potentially offensive words, detect crop marks, create impositions for a job or resize material to fit in a specified width, different from the original. The software runs on Windows NT, MacOS X Server or OpenStep (the predecessor of MacOS X Server). Helios has a bigger suite of software solutions, but all work best with EtherShare (2.6), which is basically a Unix-based front-end for an AppleTalk server, tightly integrated with two other Helios products, PDF Handshake (1.1) and EtherShare OPI (2.1). It's tight and it's fast. For the cross-platform mavens, PCShare (3.0) can be used to bring in the Windows side. The key to all this, from a PDF standpoint, is PDF Handshake. For the Macintosh, it's an Acrobat Exchange plug-in. For a UNIX workstation, it's Helios PDF Tools. Helios PC Share will enable any Windows 95, 98 or NT client to take full advantage of the PDF workflow aspects of PDF Handshake. By using the Helios software package, PDFs can be treated like any other document format, including separations, printing and color matching. These people have been working with UNIX controlled by a Macintosh front-end for a good part of the 1990s, and the ease of use is impressive. If the PDF going into this system is good, then it's almost a set it and forget it proposition. And finally, the last piece of the puzzle in PDF workflow is what amounts to PDF imposition on pages with editorial copy. This smart idea is PostStrip, a product of Candian-based Lazer-fare Media Services of Winnipeg, Manitoba (see The Cole Papers, July 1998). But since it's a one-of-a-kind software, it's worth mentioning again. PostStrip is the final act of PDF workflow, stitching the editorial and advertising PDFs together to make a finished page. It works like this: take ads, make PDFs, take editorial layouts with copy, make PDFs, then, using information from its database, it puts everything in the proper place. If, for some reason, a PDF file is not available, a space is left on the page for the missing item to be stripped in by hand. Yes, it's a true digital double burn ... first editorial, then the ads. Now in Version 2.0, PostStrip is one of those slick software ideas that's good because it replicates digitally the way things were done in the analog days. Ads were made up, editorial matter was placed in page forms, and then the made-up ads were added last. Or the ads were first, then the editorial copy. In any case, PostStrip can do the same thing with PDF files. The publishing industry has come a long way and gone through many changes, but some of the old work methods still seem to be the most logical, reminding this writer of a 30-year-old Grateful Dead song, which could easily apply to PDF workflow today. -- George Powell, powell@colepapers.net
Adobe Systems Inc., From THE COLE PAPERS, August 2000, Copyright © 2000, All Rights Reserved.
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